This post originally appeared at time.com.
Americans from across the political spectrum have become increasingly outraged and outspoken as they have learned more about growing surveillance by governments and corporations.
At first, when the government began using our cell phones and car license plates to track our movements, there was no official announcement made. No one ever told us that our dreams, fears and aspirations are private only so long as we keep them to ourselves. Should we text or email those thoughts to anyone—even a spouse, friend or doctor—the government could easily access them.
No corporate CEOs have owned up to the fact that our personal data has become so valuable to their profit margins that their companies are willing to utilize every technological tool available in order to capture it, and that they will sell it to anyone willing to pay the price. And they certainly haven’t admitted that our children’s personal information is also valuable, and that the lengths taken to mine it include gaining access to records kept at their schools.
These covert intrusions and escalating erosions of our privacy will continue to worsen unless we choose to fight and resist them.
In response, a diverse and bipartisan coalition of elected officials and citizens in 16 states nationwide along with the District of Columbia—from Hawaii to North Carolina, from Minnesota to Alabama, and from New Hampshire to New Mexico—are coming together today to introduce legislation that empowers Americans to take control over their personal privacy. Legislators from each state will introduce a range of bills focusing on student privacy, employee privacy, location tracking and personal data protection. Fundamental to each bill are protections that ensure the right for every one of us to be in control of maintaining our private, personal information.
Americans have grown tired of hearing stories like that of former college hockey player Megan Donahue, who quit her team because she did not want to give her coaches access to her social media accounts, or high school student Blake Robbins, whose school remotely accessed the webcam on the laptop it issued him and took pictures of him while he undressed. In today’s digital age, governments and corporations are armed with powerful tools that enable them to access our personal information without our knowledge or consent. Coaches and employers can coerce us into revealing personal information we only want to share with our friends and family. This is unacceptable, and our current laws are not up to the task of protecting us. But as the states are making clear today, the time has come to take a stand.
In this era of political division, privacy is an issue that bucks the national trend and has brought both sides of the aisle together. Republicans and Democrats alike strongly support laws that empower Americans to take control of their personal privacy. This shared perspective is both reasonable and firmly grounded in fundamental American values.
If the government has a legitimate reason for wanting to access someone’s communications or to use a device to track someone’s movements, it must get a warrant. If corporations want to track what Americans, including our children, do online, on private social media pages, or in school, they must get clear and express permission to do so. Without a warrant or our permission, they simply shouldn’t be doing it.
Americans are speaking with a unified, nonpartisan voice on these matters: A recent poll found that 90% of Americans want the next president to prioritize “protecting privacy so [Americans] have more control over our personal information.” State legislators throughout this nation have heard their call. The message from these collective state actions is clear: If Congress is unwilling or unable to act to adequately protect Americans’ privacy, the states are more than willing to step up and fill the void.
While each of the legislators participating in today’s announcements is fighting to protect the privacy of their own state’s residents, they are also acting in solidarity to advance the privacy of all Americans. We know that this is a fight that will continue, but with conservatives and progressives standing united, it’s a fight we can win.
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News & CommentaryDec 2024
Civil Liberties
National Security
Where Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth Stands on Civil LibertiesWhere Defense Secretary Nominee Pete Hegseth Stands on Civil Liberties
The ACLU has more than 100 years’ experience holding power accountable. As President-elect Donald Trump rolls out his cabinet picks, we analyze how his nominee for secretary of defense will impact civil liberties. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions.